Naspers spin-off Prosus surges 25% on market debut in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Shares in the spin-off of South African e-commerce group Naspers surged more than 25% in the first minutes of their market debut in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

Prosus comprises Naspers’ global empire of consumer internet assets, with the jewel in the crown a 31% stake in Chinese tech titan Tencent.

There is “way more demand than is even available, so that’s good,” said the CEO of Euronext Amsterdam, Maurice van Tilburg. “It’s going to be an interesting hour of trade after opening this morning.”

Euronext had given an indicative price of 58.70 euros per share for Prosus, implying a market value of 95.3 billion euros ($105 billion).

The shares jumped to 76 euros on opening and were trading at 75 euros at 0719 GMT.

The spin-off in Amsterdam marks the end of an era for Naspers as it looks to move beyond the legacy of former Chief Executive Koos Bekker’s prescient investment of just $34 million in Tencent when it was a startup in 2001, one of the most lucrative bets in corporate history.

The stake in Tencent, the world’s biggest videogame company and home to China’s hugely popular WeChat social media platform, is now worth $130 billion and has buttressed Naspers’ rapid growth towards becoming Africa’s most valuable listed company.

That would make Prosus the third-largest stock on the Amsterdam exchange after Shell and Unilever, and Europe’s No.2 tech firm after Germany’s SAP .

European players are still, however, dwarfed by the likes of Facebook and Amazon in the United States.

The Tencent stake has been worth more than Naspers itself for years, and dominated the $103 billion group’s finances. One motivation for spinning off Prosus is to narrow that value gap.

The Prosus listing should see about a quarter of Naspers’ value move to Amsterdam.